Clara Next Kobo Model - Kobo Clara HD

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Firmware (4.8.11090): There seem to be some bugs (or I messed things up, I will have to factory reset and see if they're still there):

• [...]
• Order of sorting is not remembered when browsing Collections... But I didn't check this after restoring the original config file. EDIT: Works fine in 4.7.10733 after identical setup as 4.8.11090)

@jackie_w, are you seeing this bug/mess up too? I forgot to test again after factory reset in FW 4.8.11090. I am back to 4.7.10733 now (and staying there for the time being).

@all: is 4.7.10733 also a Clara/Nova-specific firmware? Any idea why there would be Nova-specific firmware in the first place? (I was hoping to resurrect games but I can't see the FW in the list.)

[thymaster]

I partitioned as one.

Originally Posted by TheBard

Thank you! Good to see my assumption about cloning the card was correct.

Did you repartition to multiple partitions? A FAT32 SDHC (I assume the Clara is still limited to FAT32 format) card maxes at 32GB, whereas larger capacity cards use exFAT.

[My question might be moot, since I will probably not use more than a 32GB card]

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

@jackie_w, are you seeing this bug/mess up too? I forgot to test again after factory reset in FW 4.8.11090. I am back to 4.7.10733 now (and staying there for the time being).

@all: is 4.7.10733 also a Clara/Nova-specific firmware? Any idea why there would be Nova-specific firmware in the first place? (I was hoping to resurrect games but I can't see the FW in the list.)

I was expecting that 4.7.10733 would be firmware for Clara HD, but it doesn't seem to have the appropriate ids in it. I was told by Kobo that there would be a Clara HD specific release and version 4.8.11090 is it. Most likely, the next time they do a release they will release for all the devices.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I was expecting that 4.7.10733 would be firmware for Clara HD, but it doesn't seem to have the appropriate ids in it. I was told by Kobo that there would be a Clara HD specific release and version 4.8.11090 is it. Most likely, the next time they do a release they will release for all the devices.

Do you mean a different firmware than 4.7.10733? Because 4.7.10733 is the firmware that is on the Clara out of the box... any idea why Clara gets a separate set of firmware versions to other devices? As far as I can see 4.7.10733 wasn't released to any other devices...

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by davidfor

You might also need to check the __SyncDate column (think that's the name). Somewhere along the way, the Recent sorting seems to have changed to use the maximum of DateLastRead and __SyncDate rather than only using __SyncDate if the DateLastRead was null. I don't think this will have an affect on what you are seeing, but it is something to check.

In case it gives any insight, here is a screenshot of part of the Kobo database's content table. The only 4 books on the device are the top 4 lines. As you can see the ___SyncTime column has the same value for all 4. Shouldn't that column be in timestamp format???

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Do you mean a different firmware than 4.7.10733? Because 4.7.10733 is the firmware that is on the Clara out of the box... any idea why Clara gets a separate set of firmware versions to other devices? As far as I can see 4.7.10733 wasn't released to any other devices...

Sorry, wasn't paying enough attention to the version numbers. I read 4.7.10733 as the latest general release which of course is 4.8.11073. The build number was to similar.

4.7.10733 is the factory firmware. It is installed on the device in the factory. If you do a factory reset, it will go back to that before updating to whatever is the currently available firmware. All the devices have this and I don't think any of the factory firmware versions have been released for downloading. There is (almost) always a new firmware release available for download when a new device becomes available. In this case it is 4.8.11090.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

@jackie_w, are you seeing this bug/mess up too? I forgot to test again after factory reset in FW 4.8.11090. I am back to 4.7.10733 now (and staying there for the time being).

I'm not 100% sure I understand your question and it's hard to draw conclusions about Collections and sorting with only 4 books on the device. However, 3 of the books are in the same Collection (Thriller), same Series, same Author.

For every Collection there is a line stored in the Kobo eReader.conf file e.g.

LastLibrarySorter_shelf_filterByBookshelf%28Thriller%29=sortByAuthor()

If I use the GUI to sort this Collection by Title the conf entry seems to change correctly to

LastLibrarySorter_shelf_filterByBookshelf%28Thriller%29=sortByTitle()

which means it gets remembered.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I was told by Kobo that there would be a Clara HD specific release and version 4.8.11090 is it. Most likely, the next time they do a release they will release for all the devices.

Let's hope this is sooner rather than later. For myself, I'm not too worried as I know these niggles will be sorted out eventually. However, if Kobo were hoping to use the ClaraHD to tempt a few Kindle-devotees via US WalMart, this is not the way to do it.

Rumour has it that a high percentage of Kindle owners only want to jailbreak their device to gain access to custom fonts and cover screensavers. Kobo started the week offering out-of-the-box options for both of these.

In ClaraHD launch week Amazon respond with the introduction of custom fonts including boldness control <sarcasm>what an amazing coincidence</sarcasm> and unfortunately the ClaraHD will no longer show a screensaver of your current book cover[*].[*] Actually not strictly true - if you only have one book open you probably get the correct cover screensaver.

ETA: Calibre users - see post #460, next-to-last paragraph for a workaround to the correct cover screensaver problem.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by geek1011

Ok. I uploaded the zip of the firmware. It's in one of my previous posts. You'll need to use it as there is no download link for it, and Kobo desktop does something funny to get it (I explained in more detail earlier).

I'm not sure what I did differently, but my firmware checker gave me a link that downloaded 4.8.11090. The file name in the link just had 4.8. Checking back I did download an update for the Clara HD, but it is different to this one.

I also checked the update using the checker in my Kobo Utilities plugin. Again, that downloaded 4.8.11090 with no problems. To do that, I had to modify the version file on the device to have the id from the Clara HD and then run the check and download. I didn't change any of the other values, but it would have use 4.8.11073 as the version to check against.

I have put 4.8.11090 on my Glo. So far there aren't any problems and I don't haven't noticed any changes. But, I need to look back at your post to see what might have changed. Also, I need to do some fiddling to see about the home screen position problem.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

In case it gives any insight, here is a screenshot of part of the Kobo database's content table. The only 4 books on the device are the top 4 lines. As you can see the ___SyncTime column has the same value for all 4. Shouldn't that column be in timestamp format???

Well, it looks like a timestamp format to me, just not one I'd use anywhere. And a really frustrating one that seems to be popular in Linux log files. In this case, unfortunately, SQLite doesn't have a real timestamp data type, so timestamps are usually stored as strings. The alternative would probably be epoch timestamps which are just as annoying as this format.

And I'm pretty sure that timestamp is the problem. I installed 4.8.11090 on my Glo. Everything seemed to be OK including the books displayed on the home screen.

After seeing these timestamps, I added a couple of books. And they appeared as the first two book. Opening other or these didn't change anything. When I looked the database, I saw the same sort of timestamps. So, I fixed them to be the same format as the other timestamps, and everything was OK.

What I would say is that a change has been made that is writing the timestamps in this format. But, the reading code is not handling the format properly. I don't know if this means that there is an error happening that returns a bad value, or if the conversion back is just giving a wrong timestamp. If it is the latter, it might fix itself after a few days when the current time catches up to whatever the timestamps is being converted to. But, then it will fail again when the next time books are added to the device.

Until Kobo fixes this, a workaround is to use calibre and my Kobo Utilities plugin. The "Update metadata in device library" can set the date added to one of the dates in the library. This will set the __SyncTime in the correct format.

Another way would be to write a database trigger to use the correct format when the books are first added. It shouldn't be to hard, so I'll leave it as an exercise for someone

[Atilla]

Originally Posted by thymaster

I partitioned as one.

Is it best to clone the SD card before the initial update?
Can you also take a picture of inside back cover please? I am curious how it looks directly opposite the battery.

Thank you very much.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I'm not sure what I did differently, but my firmware checker gave me a link that downloaded 4.8.11090. The file name in the link just had 4.8. Checking back I did download an update for the Clara HD, but it is different to this one.

I also checked the update using the checker in my Kobo Utilities plugin. Again, that downloaded 4.8.11090 with no problems. To do that, I had to modify the version file on the device to have the id from the Clara HD and then run the check and download. I didn't change any of the other values, but it would have use 4.8.11073 as the version to check against.

I have put 4.8.11090 on my Glo. So far there aren't any problems and I don't haven't noticed any changes. But, I need to look back at your post to see what might have changed. Also, I need to do some fiddling to see about the home screen position problem.

It seems to work for me now too. The only complication is that now we can't download 4.8.10956 for the kobo7 devices anymore as it had the same link. I'll remove 4.8.10956 from my firmware downloader for kobo7 devices (it also needs to be removed from the wiki), and I'll add the Clara later today.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Until Kobo fixes this, a workaround is to use calibre and my Kobo Utilities plugin. The "Update metadata in device library" can set the date added to one of the dates in the library. This will set the __SyncTime in the correct format.

Just to confirm that this method works fine for me I always have to run Kobo Utilities "Update metadata" after adding new books anyway, to take advantage of the extra plugboard metadata features. 'Date added' has never been a value I've used before so I don't really mind what's in it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

...unfortunately the ClaraHD will no longer show a screensaver of your current book cover[*].

[*] Actually not strictly true - if you only have one book open you probably get the correct cover screensaver.

Okay, I admit I skimmed most of the last few pages as I'm not interested in discussion of firmware minutia or replacing an internal SD card.

But I haven't heard that the book cover screensaver has gone away. Do you just mean the bug mentioned when multiple books are open and the Clara chooses incorrectly, or is there something else I've missed.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

But I haven't heard that the book cover screensaver has gone away. Do you just mean the bug mentioned when multiple books are open and the Clara chooses incorrectly, or is there something else I've missed.

Yes, the feature still exists but the ClaraHD fw 4.8.11090 chooses incorrectly.

However, once again davidfor has ridden in on his white charger and suggested a non-techy workaround for users of the calibre plugin Kobo Utilities.

Until Kobo fixes this, a workaround is to use calibre and my Kobo Utilities plugin. The "Update metadata in device library" can set the date added to one of the dates in the library. This will set the __SyncTime in the correct format.